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Chennai, India: Corporate law firm AZB & Partners has topped the Venture Intelligence India League Tables as the Most Active Legal Advisor for both Private Equity and M&A deals – advising a total of 50 transactions - in the first six months of 2010. Ernst & Young topped the League Tables as the Most Active Transaction Advisor (both PE and M&A) for the half year.

The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on volume of PE and M&A transactions advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms.

Private Equity Deals

Among PE transactions, AZB advised 25 deals worth over $1.5 billion during the period including Olympus Capital's $300 million investment in Tata Power's coal mine SPVs in Indonesia, the $217 million investment by Standard Chartered PE, KKR and New Silk Route in Coffee Day Resorts and the $175 million investment by Temasek into National Stock Exchange. Othe…

At Venture Intelligence, we recently did a podcast with K.V. Ramani, Founder of Future Software and Co-Founder of Hughes Software Systems - both of which were acquired by Flextronics in 2004. KVR’s story is a fascinating account of the tribulations and success of an early mover in the Indian software industry, who chose - in the mid-1980s - to tread a different path than the common “body shopping” route. Some highlights from the podcast:# KVR’s story emphasizes how the founding idea - especially for an IT product company - should be based on something that is likely to become popular 3-5 years ahead. He believes the founders should focus on the vision for the company in the next 5 and leave the job of managing the next few quarters to the operational managers.# The podcast has an interesting account of how KVR converted the huge problem of its largest customer, Hughes (which accounted for 30% of the business), wanting to set up its own shop in India, into an opportunity.# KVR also hig…

Venture Intelligence recently spoke to Anita George, Director Infrastructure of International Financial Corporation (IFC) regarding the institution’s latest views on investing in India. The full version of this interview appeared in the latest Venture Intelligence quarterly Private Equity Roundup report.

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, has been making PE-type investments in India since the 1980s. Even now, when India is choc-a-bloc with PE investors, IFC remains among the most active investors year-after-year. In 2010, IFC has already consummated/announced about 15 investments, across various sectors including healthcare (Max Healthcare), Financial Services (Cholamandalam Investment & Finance, AU Financiers, Aadhar Housing Finance) and Clean Energy (Azure Power, AD Hydro Power, Bhilwara Energy, Auro Mira Energy, Applied Solar Tech and Husk Power).

IFC is also a very sought after investor (or “Limited Partner”) among India-dedicated PE/VC funds. More recently IFC has set up an…